New alternative song to review, will return the favor (as of June 24th)!

I put a new song in my music website called “Fortify Your Faith”. Please tell me how you like the song, and how it can be improved, and I will return the favor. Here is the link, it is the song on top:

Hey Aaron, this is sounding damn fine to me. Sounds like it walked right off the radio from the mid to late 80s. An uncomplicated and straight-ahead rocker. Got no nits to pick in the mix, either, everything is sounding plenty solid. Nice work!

Chordwainer,
Thank you for listening and commenting, I appreciate it! I will now seek out your music.

The vocal surprised me at the start! Almost had an Ozzy quality to it. Perhaps because it’s doubled, but actually you (or whoever the vocalist is) have similar phrasing.
In terms of any improvement possibilities, you have some solid performances on here. I think it just needs tightened up a hair. Locking this into the pocket would really make this a killer song. You’re almost there. Just needs some minor tweaks here and there that could possibly be edited without redoing them. Might be worth trying anyway :slight_smile:
Solid tune man!! I’m looking forward to hearing more of your work! :beerbanger:

Also, I hope you’re planning to enter in our cover contest here. I’d love to hear what you’d do to the 50’s song.

Catchy piece!..

I like the beefy drum, synth and bass sounds. There’s an edge of excitement and rawness to the song overall.

Mixwise, the vocal has some dynamic control issues. Phrases and words are jumping out in slightly odd ways that are a bit distracting. For example @ 55 secs, the word “bootstraps” comes across as “bootSTRAPS”. It’s really the midrange of the vocals from about 500-800hz where it is most noticeable. I would suggest trying to control the vocal more through automation and using multiple compressors in series. Maybe even a little multiband compression on that midrange area might help.

There is also some fairly strong sibilance that comes through at times - For example @ 1:13 Not sure of the exact lyric there, but the “s” sound really jumps out and then bounces around in the ping pong delay effects. De-essing both the vocal and the effects busses can help with that, although again automation may be required so that the rest of the vocal doesn’t suffer from over-de-essing.

Apart from that, the low mids are a little on the muddy side - there is a bit of a buildup happening around the 200hz mark in the mix overall.

Hope that helps!

holster,
Thank you for the review! I did the vocals and everything else. Oh man, I haven’t covered a song with a home recording in over 30 years. Not sure I’m up for that. If you have a song you want me to review, leave me a link. I didn’t find any song you’ve posted in several months.

ColdRoomStudio,
Thank you for your analysis of my song! I appreciate it! In recent years I use u-he Presswerk for compression, though I’ve never tried using more than one instance per track. I will have to try that in the future. I will now seek out your music.

Nice 80’s vibe going on! It’s not in my wheelhouse for recording but I can dig it!

Cstuettgen,
Thank you for the review! I will now review your music.